Determine the Sex of a King Snake

Video Transcript

" On behalf of Expert Village I'm Nicole and I'm here to tell you about king snakes. Sex in the king snake is not as simple as other species of snakes when it comes to it visually, sexing the snake. But there is a way to tell because if you look at the tail here of the king snake it really starts to taper off, which is about right here. That is fairly short for a king snake of this size so that tells me it's a female. The best way to tell whether your snake is a female or a male is to have it probed by your vet. That is where they stick a little metal rod right into the colico opening of the snake, which is right around this area. If it goes in fairly far that means it's a male because the male penises are inside of the body. The probe will be able to extend all the way down to the tip of it. If it's a female it's going to be shorter in there so the probe won't go in nearly as far as it would on the male. If you look right here it's a little hard to tell on this species but this right here is the colicoopening to the snake. Some snakes would have spurs right here on either side of the opening that would indicate male if they are large or female if they are fairly small. King snakes are different in the sense they don't have the spurs at all so it's a little bit harder to visually determine the sex of the king snake."